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ECC and DDR5

etbe.coker.com.au

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Re: ECC and DDR5

#151

Post by scheme271 »

etbe wrote: post #107
adrian_b wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few errors per day seems much too frequent, unless you live at a high altitude. Normal good DIMMs, at least when new, should not have errors more frequently than one error per many months. Frequent errors may appear with memories that are not seated well in their sockets, or which are old, at least several years old. Frequent errors may also be caused by more general computer problems, like a bad power supply unit.

Does this imply that the all plastic gamer PCs (that are more designed to be art projects than serious computers) are bad and that everyone should be using systems with solid steel cases to block radiation?

Plastic cases might actually be a bit better than steel depending on the radiation type. Neutron radiation is more effectively shielded by interacting with light atoms so stuff with lots of hydrogen atoms like water or polymers have a better chance of interacting with neutrons and slowing it down so that it can be stopped. Steel is probably better for gamma radiation or charged particles like muons.

But overall, pc cases are probably too thin to appreciably affect the radiation levels. Cosmic rays and their secondary radiation is fine with going through buildings so a 1mm thick case isn't going to do much.

Re: ECC and DDR5

#152

Post by mixmastamyk »

scheme271 wrote: post #149
mixmastamyk wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, though I’ve not seen any certified builds. At least advertised. Do tell who offers an ECC laptop PC at a reasonable price.

Laptops are pretty much unavailable with ECC especially with soldered memory becoming common. On the desktop side, there's multiple motherboards that explicitly note that they support ECC memory. AsRock and Asus both include ECC memory on their QVL lists. I'm not sure how many ITX boards support ECC though so getting it on something that's not a tower might be tough. But it's definitely possible, I have an ECC setup…

Even with the desktop I want to see “ECC guaranteed” on the box, not a pile of parts that “should” work.

Re: ECC and DDR5

#153

Post by etbe »

monster_truck wrote: post #150
etbe wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only report what I have seen. Feel free to write your own blog post reporting what you have seen.

I do, often, and respect the time of my readers enough to verify my claims instead of presenting anecdoes as fact.

I respect the time of my readers by accurately presenting my claims. It seems that everyone other than you was able to understand "My experience of memory errors".

Re: ECC and DDR5

#154

Post by etbe »

some_random wrote: post #145
etbe wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do YOU propose doing this when most computer "experts" have never used ECC RAM and when it's only available in high end specialist systems that aren't on sale in regular computer stores? I think my knowledge of the topic is pretty good but I learned from this discussion that almost all AMD CPUs support ECC RAM and you apparently just need a motherboard to match. When accompanying people who were buying "gamer" PC…

Any one of thousands of policy options that aren't "just ban it".

But no-one here has advocated banning anything. Please read before replying.

Re: ECC and DDR5

#155

Post by etbe »

some_random wrote: post #143
etbe wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's none of your business why are you getting so involved in this discussion?

It's none of their business whether or not others choose to use ECC. It's absolutely his business whether or not authorities force them to use ECC RAM or else.

Why is taxing non-ECC RAM instead of ECC RAM more of a problem in this regard than the thousands of other taxes?

The government imposed a 12% GST on all computer gear just because they felt like it. Would making ECC RAM GST exempt satisfy you?

Re: ECC and DDR5

#156

Post by graemep »

some_random wrote: post #144
graemep wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People can and should be educated -- and expected -- to make their own decisions about things like whether they need ECC RAM. So you think its realistic to expect the average consumer to assess the pros and cons of using ECC RAM? We could solve this by better information which addresses your concerns about it being nanny statism. We would need it to be something that consumers understand - e.g. We could require all…

There are two issues with nanny statism, the first is poorly informed kneejerk overreactions, the second is immediately jumping to heavyhanded policies. In your example even the absurd warning label is significantly less of an issue than flat out banning non ECC RAM.

I agree in principle and there are many examples of it.

I just do not think that banning non ECC is an example of nanny statism.

Re: ECC and DDR5

#157

Post by [deleted] »

flaunf221 wrote: post #93
nu11ptr wrote: post #51

I've always thought it odd that we don't use ECC as a standard on all computers. I think people really downplay the impact of memory issues. They can be devastating, especially over time. They will slowly corrupt your file system, documents, binary files, code, everything. You notice when things like your compressed files start giving CRC/checksum errors or your downloads don't match SHA-512. You are then left with t…

> You notice when things like your compressed files start giving CRC/checksum errors or your downloads don't match SHA-512. And 9 times out of 10 (probably much more) it will be faulty storage, not RAM. I'd say you are way overestimating impact of no-ECC.

[deleted]

Re: ECC and DDR5

#158

Post by creatonez »

etbe wrote: post #105
creatonez wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...No? Faulty storage will almost always show up as I/O errors, modern storage generally doesn't want to send a block of data to the CPU if there is an error in it. If your bits are flipping, chances are it's RAM and not storage. Your storage already has ECC. Some crappy flash drives might not do this, though. Seems to behave like a floppy disk at times.

The majority of storage errors I've seen since using BTRFS and ZFS everywhere have shown up only as the storage returning corrupt data and claiming it to be good. I've seen drives and SSDs return dozens of errors per month for months on end without any SAS or SATA errors or any SMART errors. I've seen this in DC grade SSDs, NAS grade hard drives, and SSDs sold in high end laptops.

This can happen, after all HDD firmware and the link is not flawless. But have you actually ruled out RAM/CPU as the primary cause? I'm skeptical.

Re: ECC and DDR5

#159

Post by scheme271 »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #152
scheme271 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laptops are pretty much unavailable with ECC especially with soldered memory becoming common. On the desktop side, there's multiple motherboards that explicitly note that they support ECC memory. AsRock and Asus both include ECC memory on their QVL lists. I'm not sure how many ITX boards support ECC though so getting it on something that's not a tower might be tough. But it's definitely possible, I have an ECC setup…

Even with the desktop I want to see “ECC guaranteed” on the box, not a pile of parts that “should” work.

It's hard to get more ECC guaranteed than the mobo manufacturer having ECC ram on their QVL (qualified vendor list) for the motherboard and indicating that ECC is supported in the specs. I suppose you can just get a complete workstation with ECC from HP or DELL and that'll be guaranteed to work but you'll certainly pay a hefty premium for that.

Re: ECC and DDR5

#160

Post by wahern »

gruez wrote: post #54
graemep wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ECC RAM is not needed for every application and mandating it for every gaming rig and machine used to run Chrome will just increase prices unnecessarily. The price increase will be very small if manufacturers are no longer able to segment the market to make a higher margin on those who need it. No one wants even games or web browsers to crash randomly. > If they want to eat that cost, it should be up to them. They…

>The price increase will be very small if manufacturers are no longer able to segment the market to make a higher margin on those who need it. AMD doesn't have this segmentation. Where's the hoard of people building systems with ECC ram? At best you have a few people on HN saying they're doing it, but in practice nobody actually does it.

AMD does segment. Only their EPYC, Pro, and some embedded models officially support ECC. Many other AMD chips have unofficial support, but if you care about data integrity, it feels like a gamble. You have to rely on suspect motherboard support and generally rely on gossip about what works well and what doesn't.
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